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BROTHER SISTER - QUEER NEWS FROM DOWNUNDER
=============================================================
SAFE SEX FUNDING CRISIS
*Safe sex education in Victoria is facing a funding crisis, forcing the
Victorian AIDS Council to devote its 1995 annual appeal to raising money
for education and prevention.*
In 1989 the AIDS Council received $250,000 in Government funding for
education and prevention strategies. This has declined to about a quarter
that level this year, according to the organisation's general manager
Bernard Gardiner.
"Ten years into the epidemic within Australia, Governments appear to
believe that the peak of the epidemic has passed and that, because
generally there has not been a significant increase in the rate of new
infections, the crisis is over," AIDS Council president, Bradley Engelmann
said in his fund-raising appeal letter.
"The pattern of the epidemic worldwide suggests that effective, aggressive
and targeted education and information campaigns are the only weapon we
have to prevent both an outbreak of new infections in those groups which,
in the Australian context, have been most affected by HIV/AIDS and also a
further spread of the virus into the general community," he wrote.
Gardiner said changes to funding arrangements following the adoption of the
National AIDS Strategy had also contributed to a reduction in money for
education in Victoria. Funding is now based on State Governments matching
Federal Government funding.
"The Victorian Government is reluctant to associate with the kind of
explicit material we know is needed for these campaigns to work and gives
no extra money to them. Gardiner said states such as New South Wales and
Queensland were given much greater support from their state governments.
He said that for a few months late last year there was a rise in the number
of new infections in Victoria.
"This should alert us that we need to be very vigilant in maintaining the
fall in infection rates. If funding is withdrawn in education we risk
seeing a rise in the infection rates," Gardiner said.
The AIDS Council is approaching the State Government to fund two projects:
a gay injecting drug users project and a venue liaison project.
"The principle needs to be reestablished that the State Government supports
the AIDS Council to run campaigns that the Health Department cannot."
Bill Calder
LOVERS AT RISK OF HIV
*Gay men in relationships are at risk of HIV infection through trusting
their lovers' fidelity rather than condoms, a Macquarie University study
has found.*
Professor Sue Kippax attributed the results in a recent survey on Sydney
men's sexual health to older gay men abandoning condoms in relationships.
"The major finding is that there is no difference between younger and older
men in terms of practising safe sex, Professor Kippax said.
"The stereotype of younger men being more reckless is certainly not borne
out by this study."
Professor Kippax said younger men were more likely to have casual partners
and practise safe sex while more older men formed stable relationships and
abandoned condoms.
"The biggest risk can be in a relationship committed to fidelity. A partner
can find it very difficult to admit a slip-up and go back to practising
safe sex until the partner can again be tested clear of HIV."
Professor Kippax said study samples were too small to quantify the
prevalence of HIV infection in regular relationships.
"It certainly is a problem. Not a huge proportion of HIV transmission
apparently occurs in regular relationships but there is a problem."
The conclusions stemmed from interviews with 169 men aged 17 to 25,
compared with responses of 734 men aged 25 to 69.
AIDS Council of New South Wales executive director, Don Baxter said the
challenge now facing gay men is to find ways to live with the ongoing
impact of AIDS on their lives.
"After over 10 years of grief and loss, gay men are struggling to maintain
fulfilling levels of intimacy and some are choosing to not use condoms with
regular sexual partners of the same HIV status.
"People will always seek to maximise their sexual pleasure and minimise the
risk. If we ignore this, then we lock ourselves out of a significant
development in gay men's sex lives and important site for AIDS education,"
Baxter said. "We want to get information out there so that men who are
making these decisions do so fully informed."
Bill Calder
BRUMBY TO DUMP KENNET EQUAL OPPORTUNITY BILL
*An ALP Government would replace the current Equal Opportunity Act with new
legislation "to bring it into the 1990s", State Opposition Leader John
Brumby has pledged.*
Speaking at last week's Laird Auction, he strongly condemned a number of
exemptions included in the Act which was amended last month by the Kennett
Government.
While the amended Act now outlaws discrimination on the basis of lawful
sexual activity, it provides exemptions where the care of children is
involved, or a person has 'genuine religious beliefs and principles'.
Brumby later told Brother Sister that the changes to the Act now allowed
for 'lawful' discrimination.
"The intention of Equal Opportunity legislation is to provide equal
opportunity and to make discrimination unlawful," he said.
"The Kennett amendments make various forms of discrimination legal. It is a
backward looking step, reflecting 1950s values. It is not equal
opportunity."
Brumby said he would repeal entirely the current Act if his party won the
next election and replace it with a new Act.
"One that would be genuinely providing protection on the grounds of gender,
race, sexuality, marital status, etc."
In further developments Brumby has written to the Federal Attorney-General,
Michael Lavarch requesting the Federal Government establish an office in
Melbourne of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
Currently complaints under Federal law are processed in Victoria by the
State Government bureaucracy.
"The new Victorian Equal Opportunity Act is clearly out of step
philosophically and administratively with federal legislation to such an
extent as to render the co-operative administrative arrangements
unworkable," Brumby wrote.
Bill Calder
FAMILY TAKES ON HEALTH GIANT
*The NIB Health Fund resorted to federal law this week in a last ditch
effort to override charges laid against it by a gay couple under the NSW
Anti-Discrimination Act.*
The charges involved NIB's refusal to grant family coverage under its
health fund scheme to Newcastle gay couple, Andrew Hope and this year's
Miss Fair Day, William Brown (aka Miss White Trash), and Hope's
two-year-old son.
Hope says this tactic by NIB is "clutching at straws."
"It's a big corporation against two individuals and they think they will
beat us because of that. They are hiding behind the rules, trying to drag
it out as long as they can so we will give up," says Hope.
"It is old fashioned homophobia. It's time the community stood up via the
Anti-Discrimination Act to say 'we've had enough'. We want our rights and
we want them equal."
The men's case was accepted by the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board last year
and came before the Equal Opportunity Tribunal this week.
In what is seen as a significant test case in the health insurance
industry, NIB's strategy could in fact backfire and force an unprecedented
appraisal of the rights of same-sex couples. Anthony Anderson, solicitor to
Hope and Brown, says this is the first time a homosexual couple has sued
for equal rights in this area.
"Most homosexual people denied coverage by a health fund simply go
elsewhere. Andrew and Bill are so appalled by the discrimination that they
wish to pursue the principle and to do all they can to see their health
fund change its policy."
Both men claim NIB's membership rules are directly and indirectly
discriminatory on grounds of gender and homosexuality. The men claim they
cohabit in a genuine, financially interdependent relationship.
Hope's two-year-old son lives with them part-time.
NIB claims that neither of the men has ever been denied single membership,
and that Hope and his son were granted family cover after a separate
application made in 1993.
But the couple say that having one single and one family membership is more
expensive than the family cover and is ludicrous given their domestic
situation.
NIB is claiming that same-sex couples do not conform to the definition of
"spouse" contained in the National Health Act (1953). Nor does the
"ordinary meaning of the word" allow for the inclusion of same-sex partners
in the category of family membership, says NIB.
Steve McLeod (Sydney Star Observer)
SACKED MAN TAKES EMPLOYER TO COURT
*A Melbourne gay man, who says he was sacked for being gay is taking his
employer to the Industrial Relations Court.*
Using a recently enacted amendment to the Federal Industrial Relations Act,
Glenn Pratt is claiming 'unlawful termination' of employment by the company
Amiad Pty Ltd.
He says the only reason given for him being sacked was his sexuality.
The case has already gone to the Industrial Relations Commission for
conciliation, though no agreement was reached. It is now set down for a
hearing in the court next month.
Pratt's solicitor, Carol Andrades of Maurice Blackburn said: "There is now
this legal remedy available for people whose employment is terminated due
to sexual preference."
The Federal law overides the state laws, including the recent changes to
the Equal Opportunity Act in Victoria.
BRIEFS
- Women's Circus in China
The Melbourne based Women's Circus will be performing at the fourth United
Nations Conference and Forum in Beijing, China during September. The UN
conference is held once each decade to review strategies for advancing the
role of women. The Circus hopes its performances will be an inspiring,
entertaining and tangible image of the strength, creativity and potential
of women globally.
- Defence Force support
A gay support group has been formed in the Australian Defence Force, with
details published in the latest issue of Army newspaper. The group, known
as G-Force Australia, was founded by Sgt David Mitchell of the RAAF who
hopes it will lead to better understanding of gay issues in the ADF.
- Tassie group wins award
The Tasmanian Gay & Lesbian Rights Group is one of three recipients of this
year's Felipa da Souza Award given annually to two individuals and one
organisation which have fought courageously for the human rights and
freedoms of sexual minorities. This is the first time the San Francisco
based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has given the
award to a group outside the developing world.
- HIV insurance battle
HIV positive Allan Jones whose complaint against Swann Insurance is before
the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has hit back at media
reports suggesting that he acted improperly in trying to claim on his
insurance after he left work due to HIV illness. The hearing continues in
July.
- Fight for IVF rights
Three Melbourne couples have announced their intention to contest the
Kennett Government's new Infertility Treatment Bill, claiming it wrongly
forbids them trying to have children. The couples, who are banned from IVF
treatment programs because they are not married, have received legal advice
that suggests the new law contradicts the Federal Sex Discrimination Act
1984.
============================================================
BOTTOM LINE
(EDITORIAL)
*New-fashionable abuse: 'Paedophile'*
Once upon a time you only had to call someone a sodomite to ruin their
career and life, just ask Oscar Wilde.
Since the advent of gay liberation that has gone out the window. But it has
been replaced by a more fashionable catchcry for bigots: 'Paedophile'.
Call someone this and everyone shrinks away from such a person in fear they
too may be tainted by the label.
There is no need to define the person's crime, no discussion of the complex
issues surrounding age of consent laws, and scant regard for providing
evidence. The accusation itself is accepted by many in society as adequate.
The recent accusations in Federal Parliament that there were 20 paedophiles
in senior ranks of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has brought
the issue back into focus.
The accuser, Liberal MP Ken Aldred, names one person and provides enough
information to identify others, yet offers no evidence to substantiate his
claims. Nor does he particularly define what the crimes are of the accused.
In Britain the age of consent for same sex relations is 21, in the old East
Germany all consenting sexual relations were legal at 14, while in other
countries certain sexual activities remain proscribed regardless of age.
So what is legally paedophilia in one country is perfectly legal in
another, and somewhere else, well who could tell.
More often than not stories about paedophiles revolve around a man having
sex with a boy. They are painted in such a way to conjure up gruesome
images of evil homosexuals kidnapping pre-pubescent boys from their
families and doing heinous things to them.
The reality often is that the 'boys' are teenagers who have willingly
entered into the relationship. However we don't often read stories about
40-year-old men being called paedophiles for having sex with 17-year-old
girls. It raises the question whether these stories are circulated simply
to provide a legitimate outlet of expression for homophobic bigots.
Certainly society should protect its younger members from older, more
powerful people using their position to manipulate or rape them, but simple
name calling does not achieve this.
What is needed is a more open and honest discussion surrounding paedophilia
and a greater clarification of all the issues involved.
***
Brother Sister is a fortnightly newspaper published in
Melbourne, VIC and Brisbane, QLD, Australia. I have selected
the main news stories as well as items of interest. If you
have any contributions, comments or questions, please e-me at
leto@werple.mira.net.au.
NB: If you are representing overseas media and wish to
utilise any or all of the above material, please credit
Brother Sister as your source (and by-line if it is listed).
Thank You.
Brendon Wickham